Yesterday, it seems Broncos coach Josh McDaniels may have pulled a Lovie Smith. The Broncos and defensive coordinator Mike Nolan have “mutually agreed to part ways”. Which seems to be more like “McDaniels wants to hire a buddy from New England,” just as Smith wanted to replace a successful Ron Rivera in 2007 with one of “his guys.”

So of course this would lead logical Bears fans to speculate…hmmm. Nolan was one of the most successful defensive coordinators in the NFL in 2009. He turned the problem area of the Broncos into the team’s strength, and was mentioned as a possible head coaching candidate.

But come on, forget about it if you think for a second that Smith would hire a successful coordinator with potential-remember this is not what he wants. He does not want someone with a proven track record of success, able to challenge him and his ideas that might make the Bears stronger. He’s going to want a yes man that will cede any authority to Lovie, and do what Lovie and Bob Babich want; what they’ve been doing for the last three unsuccessful seasons.

So nice thought, but unfortunately this sort of thing isn’t going to happen. Which is why the Bears haven’t found anyone willing to take their coordinator jobs yet.

8 Responses to “Hire Successful D Coordinator? Forget About It”

The only thing is Mike Nolan really didnt do that much. The Broncos got off to a hot start, but died the rest of the season and most of the time it was the defenses fault. A 6-0 start finished 2-8. He also works best in a 3-4 defense.

All in all though, you’re right in that he would never be hired because of Lovie.

Lovie will hire someone he knew in Tampa or St. Louis. Its as simple as that.

I don’t know if Lovie will get what he wants; I’m not sure he wanted someone like Cutler for a quarterback; I mean 1) in 2006 he repeatedly said (with reason) Grossman had to cut down on the Ints; and in 2009 they trade for a quaterback known for throwing risky passes: not much in line with Lovie’s philosophy. 2) Now Cutler had 26 Ints, which is 30% more than Grossman in 2006, and Lovie never pointed the finger to him. How come? My guess is Lovie is not the one deciding who the DC will be. Perhaps the price to pay for the Babich promotion in 2007?

Mike Nolan did not do that much? Yeah right. The Broncos were 29th in the league in 2008 in defense. With Nolan, they were 7th in the league. But forget about the FACTS for a moment. The real value he brought was he fired two thirds of the defense from 2008 after he arrived. This caused an immediate performance shift not only on defense, but on the Donkeys pathetic special teams from 2008! So the real reason for the turnaround was that Nolan refused to have substandard performers playing for him and sent them on their way! He is the one who made a Pro-Bowler out of Dumervil by moving him to the roving LB position (much like Joe Collier did with Karl Mecklunberg in the late eighties). He is the one who brought in the veteran talent that is there today.

With the changes that Nolan made, and had McPunk not destroyed the second best offense in the league, the Broncos would have been a strong contender for the Super Bowl. So yes, Nolan played a huge role in what success the Broncos had this year.

As for the collapse (which I thoroughly enjoyed because it exposed MCPunk’s ineptitude as a coach!), the reason the Broncos could not hold a lead in the last eleven games was primarily because the offense could not stay on the field long enough and consistently enough to give them a break and the defense would wear out! Donkey fans have been all over Orton and McPunk for this since November. The talk around town now is that Orton has to go because he is incapable of leading the team when the chips are down (and unable to throw an accurate pass of over twenty yards). Funny, just a couple of months before that they were saying he was superior to Cutler! Now they are all banging on Pat Bowlen and McPunk for letting Cutler go!

And for the Cutler bashers- In the end folks, if you don’t have a defense you can trust, any good QB will take more chances than he would like. If you don’t have an O-line to run behind and protect the QB, any competitive QB is going to force the ball more than he would otherwise. If you have not one professional receiver on your team, you are going to throw the ball where they are supposed to be and it won’t be them catching the ball. The INT problems are a LONG WAY from being just Cutler’s problem! Give Cutler a good O-Line, a running game, two wide outs and a tight end, and the safety net of a good defense (say, like Favre has with the Vikings, or Manning has with the Colts) and Cutler’s INTs will go back down. Until then, I don’t blame him for trying to drag this dog of a team on his own to victory!

I agree traffic56, Cutler needs talent around him to give the best, especially given his style; I don’t question his ability (surviving those 16 games as a Bear is an unheralded impressive accomplishment by itself). My point is that I find incoherent from Lovie that what made him “mad” (the Ints) seems to have now become acceptable to him.

I would like to encourage you to hold out at least some hope that the Bears front will pull the trigger on OC and DC as soon as the playoffs are over. I would rather the Bears wait to talk to coaching talent that went to the tournament before making their new hires than not talking to them before making their move. Not promising you a rose garden but I think Bears fans will be pleasantly surprised when the dust settles. Hang in there.

Interviewing Mike Nolan would just have been a waste of time. Nolan is a 3-4 guy, period, end of story. Lovie is going to live or die in HIS scheme (the Cover Who?). That is the number one reason Riviera was let go because he and lovie could not see eye to eye on the cover 2. Enter Babitch. I have to give Mike McCarthy credit for being able to say, our defense isn’t getting the results, so we’re switching to the 3-4. It was a major factor in why they went to the playoffs. Too bad that will never happen with LS.